


Ant-Man and the Wasp: Into the Quantumverse

by book_lover_dragon



Category: Ant-Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bad Spelling & Grammar, Comics/Movie Crossover, F/M, Hope has a cat bc I want her to, Literal Alternate Universes, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018), Some Swearing, my sense of science is putting 'quantum' in front of other words, none of the science in this is actual science, the snap didn't happen, this is probably gonna end up as a mess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-05-14 11:37:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19272487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/book_lover_dragon/pseuds/book_lover_dragon
Summary: When he is in an another quantum realm trip, Scott accidently gets sucked into a time vortex despite Janet's warnings. Now, while Janet had said that there is no coming back from there, neither she or rest of the Ant-fam will stop until they bring Scott back home again.





	1. No Chocolate For Scott

**Author's Note:**

> This story begins with mid-credits scene from AMATW but without the snap. It actually isn't really important to the story, I just wanted to end it in the way I wanted it to end. Nobody dies and they go to lunch.
> 
> In the future chapters I plan to mix MCU with comics. But since I'm not an actual comic reader, they'll be more like me playing with their concepts rather than canon accurate.
> 
> Also this is my first time of writing Ant-Man, and anything Marvel actually. So if you think I made a mistake of their characterisations or anything else, feel free to tell me.

In a sunny day in San Francisco, four people with a small van were in an empty parking lot, minding their own business.

Two of them was Hank Pym and his newly returned wife, Janet Van Dyne. They were side by side, Janet was typing on a laptop and Hank was complaining about the lack of respect he was getting nowadays.

“Well, you wanted a smaller quantum tunnel,” Janet said, looking at the small van over her laptop. “This is… smaller.”

As if wanting to prove Hank’s point, the van’s characteristic horn blared. “Sorry!” Scott yelled from the driver's seat.

“Well, I think it has flare,” Janet said.

Scott activated the controls and hopped out from the van. Hope walked to him with the collection unit and gave him directions of how to use it. Janet’s own, kind of terrifying warnings followed her daughter’s. Scott frowned and didn’t comment.

As Hope started to count, Scott turned to the tunnel and activated his helmet. At one, Hope turned the switch and sent Scott to the Quantum realm.

“Alright, Scott, this is a mic check,” Hank said the moment Scott disappeared. The three waited for him to answer, but they didn’t get one.

After seconds that felt like hours, just as Hope’s hand went back to the switch, Scott answered back.

“ _Mic check, one, two. One, two. How’s everybody doing tonight in the quantum realm?_ ” Scott asked in an annoyingly cheery voice.

With a sigh, Hank answered him. “Scott, we read you.”

“ _I just wanna make sure_.”

They waited for him to collect enough particles and confirmation. “Great,” Hope said. “Preparing for re-entry in five, four, three, two, one.”

With the simple movement of the switch, Scott came back from the quantum realm. He hold the device up in his hand proudly. “Now we’re done, anybody up for lunch?”

* * *

 

“Now Ava, close your eyes and try to feel and follow the energy running in your veins,” Janet said gently. She was in the chamber with Ava, teaching her to control and make her body accept the quantum healing particles.

“While the particles are healing her, the process is much harder and slower than we want,” Hank said to Bill who was standing beside him with his arms folded. “This should be the reason why the chamber wasn’t helping anymore. Ava's body is having difficulties in letting in new particles. Probably because her body was phasing for too long.”

Bill sighed. They were watching Janet treat Ava inside the chamber Bill had built for her. “Is this the third particle capsule they're using?”

“The fourth one. About to become the fifth when Hope and Scott return,” Hank said. He glanced at the elevator behind them. “We’ll send Hope to the quantum realm this time to try something different.”

“What do you mean different?” Bill turned to Hank.

“Since we began trying to heal her, we only used quantum healing particles, but it doesn’t affect more than an aspirin for her pain. Hope suggested maybe we should extend our particle range. So, this time, we won’t use a capsule that only absorbs healing particles. Instead, we’ll get as various as we can get, and see how Ava will react to them.”

Bill only nodded, and they continued to watch in silence.

With him standing side by side, Hank remembered their old days in the S.H.I.E.L.D. He wondered if he did too, but didn’t voice his question. Less than five minutes later, the elevator doors opened and a very worn out looking Hope and Scott came out from it. They were arguing and certainly didn’t seem to plan to stop.

“For the last time Scott,” Hope said with gritted teeth as they walked beside the quantum tunnel. “I don’t care you thought it was the shrinking disc in the heat of the action. If you were just a _second_ late to shrink yourself, you’d be toast!”

“Maybe, but in the end, I didn’t turn into a toast! We kicked their asses, got what we needed, and turned back in one piece!”

“Scott this isn’t-” Hope stopped and elbowed Scott to do the same. Hank was holding a finger on his mouth, and his free hand was pointed to the chamber. Janet, Ava, and Bill weren’t looking amused by their bickering either.

“Sorry just-” Hope turned to Scott and sighed. “There were some unexpected obstacles,” she said. Hank guessed there was things went worse than Scott’s wrong disc. Seeing his daughter’s state was proof of it. Their suits were covered with ash and blood, Hank assumed. “Still, we managed to get them.”

“What happened? Why did they attack you?” Hank kept his voice as calm as possible and rubbed Hope’s arm.

Hope scoffed. “It was another genius that thought our tech was on sale. But I think they learned their lesson.”

"If you look like this, I can't imagine how are they,” Hank smiled faintly at his daughter.

His small smile was enough to open Scott’s mouth though. “Oh, you have no idea! But you may want to make some upgrades to our suits though. It can become very hot in this.”

Hank’s simultaneous horror and irritation must’ve been shown on his face because Hope immediately squeezed his arm with a grimace on her face.

Hank nodded to her without another word, and Hope let go of his arm. She turned on her heels and walked away with dragging Scott after her.

* * *

 

Hope exclaimed the moment elevator doors closed. “Are you serious Scott!? Did you have to say it _that_ way in front of him?”

Scott scratched his head. “Yeah, now I think of it, maybe it wasn’t the best-”

“Yeah no shit,” Hope cut him short.

Scott grimaced and murmured an apology. Hope sighed but didn’t say anything. They waited in silence until the elevator doors opened to the building’s training area/Hope’s apartment.

When she and Hank were on the run, obviously they had to leave a lot of things from their old lives behind. Including Hope’s old apartment and Hank’s house. While Janet and Hank were living in their old house again, in an isolated beach outside of the city, Hope was still living in the lab. In the time she lived here, she almost turned the whole floor into some kind of a studio apartment. A wide training mat right in the middle of it and the rest the furniture and the open kitchen on the right side of the floor almost looked like an afterthought.

Still, Scott actually liked the place. It was very different from Hope's old apartment, which looked more like a photo from a house design magazine than an actual home. This place was reminding him of the safehouses from various TV shows and movies but in a more Hope kind of way. Because there was a glass cabinet for her Wasp suit on the left wall, and Scott exactly knew where was her secret snack stock in the kitchen.

Hope didn’t look at him again as she walked to the glass cabinet and started to take her suit off. Scott didn’t bother to since he was going to ride an ant to go back to his apartment anyway. So, he just went to the kitchenette for water and whatever sweets left from Hope.

Because of her strict diet, there were no potato chips obviously. Scott thought even the FBI must've known about her sweet-tooth by now, and his hypothesis was as well as confirmed by what he found on her cabinet. "Looks like someone went to grocery shopping!" Scott called out to her over his shoulder. “For someone with a diet like yours, you eat a lot of chocolate!”

“Stay away from my chocolates! I’m still angry at you,” Hope said as she put her helmet on its place.

Scott didn’t mind her one bit and opened the bar in his hand as he walked. He let himself drop to the couch with all his dust, and his feet went to the coffee table simultaneously. “You know I apologized like ten times Hope. Can you let it go?”

“No,” she said, and Scott rolled his eyes.

Scott watched her as she closed the glass door with a click and looked at the suit for a short moment, it needed a proper cleaning just like his suit. She took a deep breath and stretched her arms out. Scott saw a dark bruise on her right shoulder as she walked around the mat to her living room, which was just two sofas and a TV around a coffee table.

“Yeah. Let's not talk about it,” he grumbled when she didn’t say anything. Hope rolled her eyes as she walked over and fetched the chocolate bar from his hand and stepped over his legs. She took a bite from the chocolate before sitting on the empty side of the couch.

“Can you at least try to read what’s written on the thing you want to blow up next time so that you won’t set things on fire? I’d really like you to not burn into a crisp just because of a component.”

Scott frowned for a second, but his expression softened with the realization. “Wait, that's the real reason you're mad at me?" He asked. "AWW, I love you too, bae-bee.” Hope rolled her eyes at the nickname as he put his head on her shoulder and lead her hand with his to bite the chocolate. “Promise, I’ll be more careful next time Jellybean.”

Hope retreated the chocolate before he could bite and elbowed him. “Call me Jellybean one more time, and I’ll turn you into jelly Scott.”

Scott scoffed. “Why are you so mean to me? I just confessed my tremendous love to you,” he said, leaning away.

“Why am I even trying?” Hope sighed and picked up her almost finished book from the coffee table. Scott took out his phone but he started to bumping her foot with his minutes after, only for her to do it back.

Their comfortable silence didn’t even last fifteen minutes before elevator doors opened to reveal Hope’s parents. Bill and Ava were behind them, but they disappeared quickly with the doors closing on them. Janet and Hank walked to them as Hope closed her book. Scott greeted them with a wave.

Janet waved back with a smile as she went to Hope’s side. She stroked her daughter's arm while sitting on the side of the couch. “I heard your mission went slightly wrong.”

“What did you do Scott?” Hank asked directly to him as he sat on the other couch.

“Why you always just straight up assume everything is always my fault?” Scott asked offendedly.

“Because 90% of the time, it is your fault, Scott.”

“Give him a break, Henry,” Janet said.

“Yes, give me a break, Henry! Thank you, Janet,” Scott said gratefully. “Sometimes, I feel like it’s only you who appreciates and supports me in this family.”

“What do you mean by that?” Hank almost sounded offended. “I support you! I let you follow my daughter around don’t I?”

Hope giggled at her father’s words and shrugged innocently when Scott looked at her in betrayal. He looked up to Janet for help, but she was obviously trying not to smile, and she was failing miserably. “I hate all of you,” Scott said defeatedly.

“Now now, if I were you I’d be careful of what I was saying to us, Scott. Maybe our hands would slip next time when you’re in the quantum realm,” Hank said like it's no big deal.

At Hank’s words, the smile on Hope’s face turns into a frown. “I thought I was going in this time.”

“What do you mean ‘this time’?” Scott asks. “I thought we’d had enough particles when we got the fifth one.”

“We thought so too. Until the third one. We just didn’t tell neither to you or Ava that it wasn’t working,” Janet sighed. “Her body keeps rejecting the particles, and I'm not sure why.”

“But she seemed to absorb the quantum energy coming out of you. Both the times when you touched her with your fingers, and she was sucking it out of you from the tunnel.”

“Yes, but now both mom and the healing particles can’t go further than being a temporary solution.” Hope explained. “Ava feels better after treatment, but a couple of hours later, the pain and the phasing returns like it’s never been gone.”

A short silence fell between them until Scott broke it. “But, there is still a chance, right? I’m sure you guys had figure something out.”

“Well kinda. I think it's because of her lack of particles other than healing ones. Her body can’t complete it’s phasing with only one kind,” Hope explained.

Scott nodded. “So, what are we going to do?”

“Well, this time I’ll go to the quantum realm and take all kinds of particles I can get to test them later. That’s the reason why we needed those nano filters we got today. To decompose the particles and figure out the right amount and combinations that can heal Ava.”

“You make it all sound it's so simple- like we’re gonna go try to find her favorite cake flavor,” Scott said.

Janet laughed at Scott’s statement and turned to Hank. “See, he’s starting to get quantum physics.”


	2. Ghosts, Ants or Bees?

“Okay, I admit. This is delicious,” Ava said, licking her strawberry ice cream with enthusiasm. Scott and Hope were taking Cassie out for ice cream tonight, and they had asked if she wanted to come too after her session with Janet.

Ava was going to say no at first. Because while she was grateful for their help after their not-so-nice meeting, she didn’t exactly see them as her friends since their help was mostly out of guilt rather than generosity. But, Scott and Cassie had asked her very nicely and thanks to Hope, she was free of the pain almost a week now. So ice cream didn’t sound so bad.

She was both realizing and remembering that this was her life before the accident, free of constant pain and fear. She was now gaining it back, with the help of Hank Pym and his family, who was the one responsible for her state in the first place.

Now, she was eating ice cream in a park with the said man’s daughter, her rather silly partner, and his cute daughter. Considering she tried to kill the two adults and abduct the kid, this was something new and unexpected.

“I know, right! This place makes the best ice cream in the whole city!” Cassie said with her strawberry ice cream in hand and a big smile on her face. “So, are you staying for a movie too, Ava? We’ll watch Antz tonight!”

Ava frowned for a short moment before leaning over to look at Scoot over Cassie, “Antz?”

He shrugged and nodded at Hope. “We watched Bee Movie last week so, tonight Antz it is!”

“Yes, and let’s never watch Bee Movie again please,” Hope murmured to her caramel ice cream.

“Or we can watch something with ghosts if you’d like!” Cassie offered to Ava sweetly.

For a short moment, Ava froze with her mouth open, but she quickly put on a smug face and asked Cassie teasingly, “But won’t you be scared?”

“I eat fear for breakfast!” Cassie exclaimed with ice cream on her upper lip.

“Wow! Such a tough cookie,” Hope said before biting her ice cream. “Your dad should learn how to be tough from you, Cass.”

“But he’s already tough Hope! Aren’t you tough, daddy?” Cassie asked with a frown.

“Yes, I am peanut! Hear that Hope?!” Scott nudged her with his elbow, and she giggled. “My daughter thinks I’m tough. Therefore I’m the toughest of all.”

“She only thinks that way, because she didn’t see you reading John Green books,” Hope said with a smile that Scott returned.

“We can watch the Scooby-doo!” Cassie yelled.

“No, I’m okay with Antz. I’ve never watched it before,” Ava smiled.

“Then you’re gonna love it!” Cassie said and started to tell about the movie in haste until Scott stopped her from giving away any spoilers to Ava.

“No, we wouldn’t,” Cassie said sheepishly to her ice cream, and Hope snorted.

“Those are big words, coming from a man who is an actual spoiler machine,” Hope murmured and threw a nasty look at him. But Scott only shrugged and continued to lick his ice cream.

* * *

 

“I like Ava, she’s nice,” Cassie said as Scott pulled the covers over her. “I wish her hand didn’t phase though, it seemed to upset her.”

Scott bit his lip and nodded. “Yeah, but Hope and her parents are trying to help her, you know. Dr. Bill too. You saw that yourself today. It’s just… sometimes you need to try very hard to achieve something you know.”

“Yeah,” Cassie said and hugged her thin blanket. “I _hope_ , Hope and her parents find a way to cure her. Tell Hope that I’m really _hoping_ that she finds a cure.”

Scott frowned and just as he opened his mouth, Hope’s voice came from the doorway. “Did you just make two Hope puns in a row, Cassie?”

Cassie giggled into her pillow, and Scott got up from her bedside with a smug grin. “Oh, yes, she did. She’s learning from the best, aren’t you peanut?”

“Yes daddy,” Cassie said, and Scott leaned to kiss her forehead before tucking her in again. He caressed her hair and wished his goodnights.

“Goodnight Cassie,” Hope said, turning the lights off and Cassie wished them a goodnight too before Scott closed the door and left her to sleep.

“Just for the record,” Scott whispered to Hope as they walked down the stairs. “She made the Hope jokes by herself, and I’m very proud of her.”

“Of course you are, _Bae-bee_ ,” Hope said, and Scott didn’t miss the little smirk on her lips.

“So, you actually like the nickname,” Scott teased.

“No, I don’t. I just used it as an example of your terrible sense of humor,” Hope dismissed him and entered the living room.

“Hmm, sure, sure,” Scott followed her suit.

Hope sat down on his couch with a huff. Scott knew what that was about. “What goes wrong with her?” he asked and sat beside her. "Why is her body keep rejecting treatments?"

“I don’t know. None of us know, even mom.” She folded her arms and put her head on the couch, looking at Scott sideways. “We start trying a new method, it seems to be working for a while, and then suddenly she starts to phase again. She probably didn’t say it out loud because of Cassie tonight, but I’m almost sure her pains were back too.”

Scott silently nodded and crawled next to her. He wrapped an arm around her waist, and her head went to his shoulder. In a calm silence, they sat like that for a short while. Both of them thinking but finding nothing.

Maybe… Scott was no quantum physicist but, “What if we just take her to the quantum realm with us next time?”

“What?” Hope frowned.

“You heard me! Think about it, instead of us going and bringing a bottle from the river, let’s just throw her in it this time.”

Hope rolled her eyes in frustration. “Scott answer me; what would happen if you throw a dehydrated -almost dead- person into a river?”

Scott’s answer was a grimace.

“Yep. And we both know how quantum realm affects the mind, and Ava’s isn’t a very calm one already.” Hope looks at the ceiling again and sighs. “Still, we have to keep getting particles for her to keep her alive until we find a solution that actually heals her.”

Scott put his cheek on her hair and hummed. “Cassie believes in you guys, though. You heard yourself, she is really hoping that you’d find a solution Bae-bee.”

Scott was sure that Hope closed her eyes to keep them from rolling, but she couldn’t stop the smile that formed on her lips. “I hate both of you,” she said while her arm sneaked around his waist.

* * *

 

“What are you doing?” Hope asked Scott when he exited from the lab's door and walked beside her with his suit on. She turned to her father to ask a similar question before Scott could answer her. “What is he doing?”

Hank shrugged. “Our current ideas to heal Ava have proven to be unsuccessful. We need more particles than ever to keep her alive. I figured two at one time means double more particles to work on.”

Hope frowned but didn’t dwell on it. Since both she and Scott had been to the quantum realm before and her parents were more than capable of handling a couple of computers and a switch. So she and Scott walked and stood in front of the mini-quantum tunnel and put on their helmets.

“It won’t be any problem we can handle, so don’t worry jellybean,” Janet said, as if she’d heard her daughters doubts. "We're in the middle of a forest, with ant-cams all around. I doubt the FBI could even find us if we invited them for tea."

Hope smiled faintly and nodded to her mother.

“Ready?” Janet asked.

“Ready,” both Scott and Hope copied her. They looked at each other for a split second as Janet counted backwards before sending both of them to the quantum realm.

Despite going through the tunnel couple of times now, Hope had never been able to keep her eyes open when her mother turned the switch. When she was able to open her eyes, she was always seeing going right besides molecules, microscopic creatures and worlds that she never saw this way before going subatomic and it amazed her every single time.

But still, none of them could ever race with the quantum realm itself. After the short silence of the quantum void, there they are… The realm that was in Hope’s both dreams and nightmares after she learned what really happened to her mother.

 _30 years down here…_ Hope thought. _Alone, but not entirely._ Apart from her loved ones, but with other creatures that Hope could never imagine ever existed. There was so much to learn, so much to explore, even thirty years weren’t enough for all of it.

“ _Mic check, Hope, Scott? Do you read us?_ ” Hank asked, his voice layered in static.

“Yeah, we read you,” Hope said and looked at Scott. It was the first time they entered the quantum realm together. The colors around them were dancing on his helmet, and it was distracting, mesmerizing even. Hope had to shake her head to focus. “Ready?”

“It never gets old, right?” Scott said. Hope could tell he was smiling from looking at his eyes through his lens. “Ready,” he nodded, and they opened their capsules simultaneously.

What happens next surprised Hope, maybe because it was the first time Hope saw another person to do it in this place she wasn’t sure. With the force of particles going in the capsule, Scott and Hope floated away from each other.

“Huh,” Scott looked at Hope when he closed his capsule. “I never thought I moved when I did this.”

“Me neither,” Hope said with a sudden uneasy feeling in her stomach that she didn’t mention out loud. “Mom, dad, we’re done.”

“ _Ok, preparing for return five, four, three-_ ”

Hope waited for her to continue, so did Scott. But Janet didn’t say the rest of the countdown.

“ _Scott, where are you?_ ” she asked instead.

“What do mean where I am?” Scott asked. He looked at Hope with confusion as he answered. “I’m right here.”

“He’s right in front of me, mom,” Hope said, a bit concerned. “Can’t you see him on the map?”

“ _I can’t…_ ” Janet said and Hope knew something was wrong.

“What do you mean you can’t?” Hope asked.

“I’m right here, Janet!” Scott called with a slightly panicked voice. “Hank if this is you screwing around-”

“ _Hope, do you have visual of Scott?_ ” This was Hank. “ _We lost contact with him._ ”

“WHAT DO MEAN YOU LOST- I can hear you guys!” Scott yelled and looked at Hope with rising fear. He tried to get to her with frantic moves. He waved the canister wildly like they’d see him.

“Dad he’s right in front of me. he can hear you and me, I can hear him- he’s right in front of me!” Hope almost yelled. “Pull us back- NOW.”

“HOPE!” Scott shouted, looking behind him as he pulled towards a swirling tunnel against his will. Hope froze just for a mini-second in fear with her knowledge of the tunnel. A time vortex.

“SCOTT!” Hope cried. She activated her wings and darted towards him, but the vortex’s force was stronger than her wings. Still, she held out her hand to him as she flew and saw him to do the same.

But only a second after, Scott disappeared. And Hope found herself already on half-way back to her normal size, without Scott this time.


	3. Sleepless Nights

Hope was suiting up and it was taking all the will inside her to do so.

She was taking trembling breaths, sometimes sniffing. Her mind was a mess and she thought she’s never felt this loathed and afraid to do anything in her life.

She understood how her father felt that day now.

Telling a little girl that her father is lost, probably won’t ever coming back…

_Because of a stupid malfunction._

“You sure you want to tell her, Hope?” Hank had asked, standing.

Hope couldn’t even bear the thought of another little girl waiting in the dark with fear for her parents to show up. “Yes, she deserves to know what happened to her dad.”

Hank nodded, probably lost in his own memories of a little girl waiting for her mother. “And, you sure you want to do his this way? You could bring her here, and all three of us can explain.”

“No,” Hope answered. “What if Maggie or Paxton decides to check on her when she’s away. Don’t think they can handle her missing too, and we then have to explain things to them. But Cassie is his daughter and she deserves to know.”

Hank nodded defeatedly. “We’ll find a way Hope.” He looked at her eyes. “We always do.”

“Just like we did to Ava?” Hope didn’t look at him as she checked her blasters. “It took us thirty years to find mom and Ava is only holding on, and right now Scott’s probably hiding from a t-rex.”

Hope took a deep breath to contain herself and shut her eyes. “It’s just… We’re so lost dad… so-”

“No,” Hank said. He walked to his daughter and held her by the arms, forcing her to stand still and look at him. “We are not lost, Hope. We’re _figuring out_. Okay? You’ll say these exact words to Cassie because her dad isn’t gone. Because we are _figuring it out_.”

Hope couldn’t help but think that those exact words could’ve changed her childhood. Only if her father had held her just like he did now back then, things might’ve been so different. She realized he was doing it now; he’d failed when she was little, but he was trying to do it now. He was being there for her now, for another little girl.

Hope bit her lip and looked at him before nodding once. She snapped her helmet on and shrunk. Hank followed her tiny form to fly out the window and into the night.

* * *

 

Sneaking into Cassie’s bedroom was easy, a cracked open window enough for Hope to fly in. A soft yellow light was looming in the room from the open window, causing her fluff animals and toys almost look like statues in the dark, watching the tiny, winged figure fly across the room.

Hope looked at her as she fled over her. Cassie was asleep of course; it was well past midnight. Hope guessed Paxton and Maggie would be too, but decided it wouldn’t hurt to take a look at least to the corridor.

She stuck out her head from the hole and looked around. All the doors on the second floor were closed and there was no TV or any other sound to be heard. It eased Hope just a little and she fled back to wake up Cassie.

Hope went to her right side and grew back to her real size. She opened her helmet and took a deep breath. She reached out and gently shook Cassie’s shoulder. “Cassie? Sweetie wake up.”

Cassie’s eyes shivered, then slowly she opened her eyes. For some seconds, she blinked into emptiness before focusing on Hope and almost yelled her name if Hope haven't immediately closed her hand on Cassie’s mouth.

“We need to be quiet, or else we can get caught,” Hope whispered to her quickly. Cassie nodded and, to Hope’s surprise, her arms went around her neck to hug her.

“Nobody knows where daddy is. He was supposed to come and pick me up yesterday but he didn’t come. Paxton thinks he’s missing…” Cassie whispered to Hope in haste and worry. They broke apart and Cassie looked up to her with such innocent hope that Hope’s heart clenched painfully in her chest.

Hope took a trembling breath and bit her lip. She tried to swallow the lump in her throat with no success and looked into Cassie’s eyes. “Your dad is in the quantum realm, Cassie.”

Cassie frowned. “The place where Janet was?”

“Yeah.”

“But dad said she was trapped in there for thirty years,” tears were welling up in her eyes when she whispered. “Dad’s trapped there too?”

Hope was burning inside. She was cursing for her father to send them together just for a couple of extra particles. She was angry at Scott for agreeing to go in the first place. She was mad at herself for letting him.

“No,” Hope said. “He isn’t, because unlike my mother we now have the technology to find and bring him back. We’re working on it. We’re… we’re figuring it out. I promise we’ll bring him back to you, okay, Cassie?”

Her eyes were still teary, but she nodded.

“And, you can’t tell anybody about this,” Hope stroked the little girl’s hair. “If the police or FBI finds us, he may stay trapped for good.”

Cassie nodded. “Okay, I promise.”

Hope nodded herself too, and this time she hugged Cassie. “I promise Cass, we’ll find him.”

Hope felt little arms hold her a bit tighter before letting go. Hope got up and walked to the window. Not knowing what to say, she looked at Cassie and wished her goodnight before shrinking and flying out through the window.

* * *

 

_In the cool of the evening when everything is getting kind of groovy…_

Hope’s working hands stopped as the song’s calm and familiar melody filled her ears. She marveled at the fact that hearing one song could throw off her balance so quickly and harshly. Apparently what people were saying about the phenomenon was correct.

She wasn’t even actively listening before that particular song, but her hands didn’t start to work again until half way through the song. Shaking her head, she forced herself to focus back to her task at hand: Cable lining the ‘quantum compass,’ which they finished the design only four days ago, and were building it now to use it in their search of Scott in the quantum realm.

It has been a month since he got sucked by a time vortex, and Hope, Janet, Hank, and even Ava and Bill, were still trying desperately to find a way to save him. They found a game-changing idea two weeks ago: building a quantum compass.

After two years of searching, theorizing and discovering the quantum realm and its physics to find her mom, Hope is both terrified and amazed that there’s still so little they know, and so much more to discover.

But everything’s different from that two isolated years with her father; this time she has her mom with her, and it's something she wanted for all her life. Just her to be around, speaking with her while drinking coffee, teasing her dad about his choice of ties, or just standing side by side while looking to a laptop and writing codes to navigate their way in the quantum realm, it’s more than she ever imagined.

Only if it wasn’t to find a very lost Scott in the quantum realm, who was probably in a different dimension by now or still being dragged through time at the moment. But, Hope and her parents had promised Cassie to bring her dad back, and this Wasp wasn’t going to leave her Ant-Man in an unknown dimension.

Her mother had survived down there for thirty years until they were able to locate and bring her back. Remembering their talk on parents and their love for their daughters, Hope knew that Scott would not give up fighting. He would not stop hoping and trying to find ways to come back, and that was his part. Hope and everyone else’s role was doing everything they can do to find him.

Now they already had both the technology and a guide in their hands to find Scott. The only thing they needed was determination, which Hope had in a significant amount inside. But, her good thoughts and mood only lasted ten seconds before her brain replayed a memory to crush almost all her hopes.

 _Don’t get sucked into a time vortex; we won’t be able to save you,_ said, her mother when they were sending him for particles for the first time.

It had almost sounded funny back then, like something Janet made up to mess with Scott like she sometimes did to Hank and Hope. And oh, how many times she had wished it was just a joke of her mother’s.

Even though Hope had never even thought of believing- or rather _accepting_ her mother’s words in this one. _“Once, it was impossible to bring you back too,”_ Hope said after her mother tried to talk her about the odds. _“Now, we drink coffee while going over fashion magazines.”_

Hope continued to her work with the low sound of music and faint patters of the giant ants around her. Other than them and little buzzing sounds coming out of the compass, the lab was silent in the middle of the night.Until an alarm sound came out from one of the monitors.

The sudden and unexpected noise made her jump on her chair. Hope sighed in relief when she realized the alarm didn’t go off to inform her of the FBI, but something from the quantum realm.

She got up and got faster at each step she took to the monitor. The ants got out of her way as she passed by them. When she arrived and silenced the alarm to see what triggered it, a gasp escaped from her lips.

**UNIDENTIFIED SIGNAL DETECTED**

Hope frowned and allowed herself to freak out only for three seconds before pulling herself together and getting to work. She looked around for a chair and a giant ant brought her a stool without her needing to order it specially. Hope sat and started to type to the open laptop in front of her.

She bit her lip in concentration as she hastily typed an algorithm to analyze the signal’s waves. With the recent quantum lessons from her mother, it only took her about only a couple minutes to adapt the algorithm they used to find her mother to examine, and hopefully, locate the signal. With a shaky breath, she typed enter and waited with a burning feeling in her stomach to the process to begin.

She jerked with a rubbing feeling on her leg. Looking down, she saw her cat Opal looking up to her with his beautiful blue-green eyes. His tail curled side to side before meowing softly and bumping her leg with his head.

Despite her nervousness, a soft chuckle escaped from Hope. “Sorry for the alarm, my tiny panther.”

She picked him up and cuddled him. Her fingers stroked his soft, black fur as she watched the numbers change on the computer screen until they suddenly stopped.

 _“What is this?”_ Hope murmured as she stared at the results. After reading them once, then twice, she figured it out. _I can't believe he did it_ , against all Hope’s prejudice, Scott had used the morse code in a message to get help. _The danger isn’t aliens, but getting stuck in another realm counts I guess._

There was a storm of thoughts inside head but at the same time, her most burning question since two months was answered. _He’s alive!_

* * *

 

“Mom! Dad! I found a trace!” Hope called out as she entered her parents’ house. She was holding her laptop with some notes under her right arm and two pastry bags was in her left hand. There was a massive smile on her face for the first time after months. “Scott’s alive and he sent us a signal!”

Opal entered the house after her and Hope closed the door behind them. She then sprinted from room to room on the first floor, went to the kitchen in hopes to find her parents there but the kitchen was empty. Though it didn’t upset her as she dropped the paper bags on the counter and started to scatter out her calculations on the table. She was excited, almost giddy, and felt like a little girl couldn’t wait for her parents to see her newest drawing.

“Hope?” Janet said as she entered the kitchen. She was wearing a dark red bathrobe and slippers. She walked over to look at Hope’s notes while suppressing a yawn.

“Sorry if I woke you up,” Hope bit her lip. “But this is big. I believe Scott left the vortex and somehow found a way to send us a message in morse code. The quantum antennas received it last night. He says he felt like five hours passed before the vortex spat him out and he built a basic signal generator from scraps for us to follow.”

“But how do you know it’s Scott? Does he know the morse code? How can you be so sure?”

“Because he once lectured me about how governments should build telegraph stations again in case if the next alien attack on earth would cut the internet around the world.” Hope stops at her mother’s confused frown and adds with a calmer voice. “And at the end of the message he wants us to tell Cassie that he’s sorry he couldn’t pick her up from school, but he’ll make it up to her later.”

* * *

 

“Henry! Henry, are you here?” Janet called as she and her very excited daughter made their way to Hank’s -and now, Janet’s too- lab.

They found him on his desk, asleep with his head on his arms and in yesterday’s clothes — a mess of papers, pens, and plans around him.

“Dad?” Hope went beside him and gently shook his shoulder to wake him up as Janet started to tidy up the mess to open area for Hope’s plans.

With a deep yawn, Hank straightened in his chair, and his hand immediately went to his aching neck. His back was no better. “I should’ve come with you instead of working five more minutes Jan.”

“Yes, you should. I tell you that all the time,” Janet said and rubbed his neck and shoulders. “Hope found something last night. A message from Scott.”

With that, all Hank’s sleepiness disappeared, and he started to pull the papers towards him. “What do you mean? The suit doesn’t have that kind of equipment-”

“He came out of the vortex, dad. He says he was in the vortex for five hours then it spat him out. He must have found some basic stuff where he stranded and built an amateur radio to send us signals.”

Hank continued to read the papers as Hope shared a look with her mom for a short second. “The first thing antennas caught was his message, but the signal after it doesn’t stop. He wants us to follow the signal, just like the way we did with mom.”

Hank was staring at the papers blankly now. “But Hope-” he started, but Hope didn’t listen and just grabbed a board pen from his desk instead.

She went to the whiteboard and started to write her formula to calculate how far he went in the quantum realm in the five hours he was in the vortex. “Quantum realm is in constant change inside it, but our world stays the same. So we need to find exactly which point he left the vortex. The signal he’s sending is helpful, but useless if we don’t spot the exact source to grow back to find him.”

“Yes that could work but- _How_ did he grow back?” Hank asked in frustration. “He didn’t have a growing disk with him this time. How did he find the necessary equipment -that he is familiar with- to build something like that?”

Hope stared at her father for a short moment. “What do you mean he didn’t? How are so sure?”

“Because I emptied the suit's pockets when I was working on it. He put it on without any discs or any Pym particles enough for him to grow back. He must’ve been pulled out by somebody.”

“Mom?” Hope asked Janet almost pleadingly, and her daughter’s voice broke Janet out from her reverie. She took a deep breath before going beside her daughter.

“Two possibilities,” she took the board pen from Hope and drew a line. “Scott is either found by the native creatures of the quantum realm, probably one of the peaceful ones, so they helped him send a message and a signal. But… I doubt it. The groups with tech like that usually weren’t friendly or helpful.

“The other possibility is,” Janet was now drawing vertical lines on the upside of the first line she drew. “He got pulled out by someone… from another time, or universe.”

She circled an intersection in drawing. Then circled another, just two lines right. It’s meaning was clear as day and it made all three stop talking as they let the weight of it drop.

Hope broke the silence. “We can still track him down using his signal though.”

“No,” Hank started and got up from his chair though Janet could see Hope already made her decision.

“ _No?_ Are you seriously going to leave him alone down there waiting for us to come? What do you think I’m going to tell Cassie? That I left his dad in another realm because my dad said so?”

“It’s too-”

“ _Enough_.” Janet held out her hand and shushed them both. “Hank is right, it’s dangerous- _BUT,_ so was saving me.” Her husband and daughter listened without interruption. “If it weren’t for him I wouldn’t be here with you. And he went to the quantum realm because we told him to. We need to clean up our mess.”

“But you’re talking about time travel Janet. Alternate universes! How can we know that he isn’t captured or even still  _alive?_ He’s message says he got out after five hours. If we suppose he built the machine in the same week, it took two months to signal to arrive here. She can’t possibly think of spending two months in a pod following the signal.”

“Mom spent thirty years down there,” Hope looked away from her mother. “It’s not impossible.”

“And I don’t think it’ll take two months to find the source,” Janet said. “If we spot the source’s exact spot, we could align Hope’s entry in the shortest angle to the source.”

Hank looked down with a weary sigh. He leaned back to his desk in defeat. The sight broke Janet’s heart, but she knew they had to do this.

Hope walked beside him and squeezed his hand. “I’ll do this, dad, with or without your help.”

“I know,” Hank said and squeezed back. Janet went to his other side and took his other hand. They stood like that for a couple of minutes, Hope and Janet’s heads on Hank’s shoulders, silently making promises to each other of the things they knew they had no control over, but doing it nonetheless, only to not lose their hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope almost canonically got a cat, but I was robbed of it. So, I had to give her a cat in this one of course.
> 
> I hope you guys enjoyed this and if you have anything to say, don't be afraid.


	4. Homesick

 “ _Wow_ ,” Hank Pym said in a rare show of admiration as he looked up to a fifty feet tall Scott in the specialized lab. 

 

“WE DID IT! WE DID IT GUYS!” Scott was yelling while looking at his giant hands, feet, and body. When he looked up, and the ceiling wasn’t looking so high anymore. Turning his head down, he saw almost small, almost tiny Hope and Hank. They almost looked like Cassie’s toys from his level, and Scott found the idea childishly amusing. He felt a smile form on his face that matched his feelings but his new helmet was covering it. Though, it didn't cover his unrestrained laugh.

 

“Now be careful okay, _Giant-Man?_ ” Hope said with a bright smile. Her excitement matched his, Scott saw. “Try to move slowly to not to fall or break anything. Your strength has increased with your size. So, if you aren't careful, you may accidentally open a hole in the wall.”

 

Scott made a thumbs up. He took a deep breath and slowly took a couple of steps forward before stopping abruptly. Hope looked at her father questioningly before asking the giant. “Are you okay, Scott? Do you have nausea or pain?”

 

“Uh,” Scott’s hand went to scratch his head, but he realized he couldn't do that fairly quickly. Though the motion of his eyes suddenly caused him a faint headache. He tried to concentrate, but he wasn’t sure if his vision was getting blurry or his red lenses needed cleaning. He tried to clear his throat before speaking. “ Uhm- I’m okay, I guess? I think I just need to clean my lenses...”

 

Scott straightened and blinked for a moment before feeling to fall onwards. His hand darted to hold a column to not fall on Hank and Hope, and they immediately retreated while giving him directions to shrink back.

 

Scott did as he told. He closed his eyes and pushed the button on his right hand. He felt himself shrinking and a moment later he was back to his normal size. 

 

When he reopened his eyes, he felt like he was still falling, which he _was_ until Hope ran and caught him. Then Hank came too to her help carry him. Scott’s eyes closed again against his will, but he couldn’t find the strength to open them back.

* * *

Scott woke up.

 

Probably still under the dream’s effect, he was half expecting to find a plate of orange slices on his bedside, but he was disappointed when his vision became normal and he saw the beeping alarm clock instead of the fruits. 

 

Scott tiredly sighed and silenced the alarm, but he didn’t make an effort to leave the bed. He just turned on his back and lazily watched the ceiling with an arm under his head instead. He started to think about his dream.

 

His memories were showing up in his dreams more often lately. They were various. Sometimes before, sometimes after he became the Ant-Man, rarely, when he was a child or a teenager. Though, they were mostly from after he became the Ant-Man. 

 

For example, the last one was when Hank and Hope were working on Giant-Man. He saw Cassie previous night, with her ugly bunny on under her arms and a massive smile on her face. On last thursday Hope had given him one last smirk before snapping on her helmet and flying away for him to follow her.

 

 They were making Scott feel more homesick than ever.

 

Not that his daily life was failing to remind him of the things he had to leave behind. How could he ever forgot what he’d lost while he was living in an another -wait- _an alternate_ version of it, which he thought was a terrible version. His dreams were just a cherry on top of his general problems.

 

He took a deep breath and pushed over the covers. He wasn’t ready to face the day -he never was for a while now, but he had nothing else worth to do other than swinging his legs over and rubbing his face to wake up fully.

 

He got up and went to take a quick shower, then he came back to his room. He put on some clean clothes without rush, then he started to wear his protective suit. 

 

Of course, it wasn’t his Ant-Man suit. It looked more like the suit Hank wore for going to to the quantum realm to get Janet back home, only this one was more… basic. With its dirty gray color and black lensed helmet, Scott always thought he looked like a giant bullet-ant when he wore it. The black strips on his arms and legs completed the look.

 

He zipped his suit but didn’t put his helmet on. Instead, he picked it up from the open shelf of his wardrobe and left his room with it hanging from his hand. Walking from the narrow corridor, he turned left and entered the kitchen.

 

“Good morning,” he said to _other_ Cassie and _other_ Maggie. They were feeling extra _other_ for Scott this morning, but he didn’t tell that to them.

    

“Morvnin’ dad,” said sixteen-year-old Cassie while chewing her cereal idly. Her mother Maggie greeted Scott too, but she did it with proper manners.

 

Scott found himself a bowl from the dish rack and sat down himself too. He checked the clock before pouring cereal and milk in his bowl. His silence was expected considering the day, but it still felt unusual when it compared to his general cheerfulness.

 

“I thought you didn’t need to go to work today,” Maggie attempted to make small talk while eyeing him behind her coffee mug.

 

“I don’t. I just wanted to check and renew the batteries of the radio. The last time I did was three weeks ago, the batteries must be running low by now.” Scott said, his attention mostly on his spoon.

 

“I’ll come with you,” Cassie said. Her mother made a face at her but she quickly shot back by making a similar one.

 

Scott shrugged. “Whatever you want Cass,” he said in a neutral voice but there was no small talk for the rest of the breakfast.

 

* * *

 

“So… Happy anniversary I guess?” Luis said in a weak voice when Scott sat on the passenger seat and closed the door.

   

“Not funny, Luis,” he said, taking off his mask.

 

“Yeah,” Cassie agreed from the back seat, playing with her safety belt. Her mask was already thrown on the left seat.

   

They were in other Luis’ ugly sedan. Apparently, he was a friend of Scott’s in this universe too. His character was much like the Luis Scott had met in prison. Honestly, the only notable difference between them was the other Luis lacked the ugly brown van, which he made it up by his ugly brown sedan.

Whenever Scott needed to go to the radio transmitter, Luis would take him there since told him who he was, making him one of the three people who knew his secret. Seeing he still wasn’t killed or kidnapped yet, it was clear which Luis was better at keeping secrets.

 

Scott had a car himself too, but mostly it was him and Luis together whenever he went to the radio. Sometimes Cassie would tag along also. Since the journey itself wasn’t very fun, Scott guessed she was doing it to support him. He couldn’t believe at the fact that his daughter was still that amazing even in a different age and universe.

 

They were going to the shed mostly once at every two or three weeks -but never a month. The road usually took about forty minutes after they leave the city, but it could get longer. Sometimes because of the weather, sometimes the possible eyes watching them from the bushes. 

 

Luis opened the radio, and they listened to music for a while without talking. Then, Cassie leaned in between the front seats and asked Scott. “Do you still believe they’ll come for you?”

 

She hadn’t asked that question for some time, but Scott guessed it was probably because his repeating answer bored her out. Still, he was about to give the same answer once more. “ Yes. Hank spend years trying to find Janet, not knowing if she was alive or not. So did Hope after we learned it’s possible to go and come back from the quantum realm. I know they’re coming. They probably still haven’t figured out the numbers.”

 

To Cassie, it was a weak excuse. “Dad, it’s been- ow!” her words got cut by the loud and hideous screeching from the radio. Both she and Scott covered both of their ears while Luis barely saved them from crashing while covering his right ear.

 

The terrible sound ended about five seconds later, leaving the three of them with ringing ears.

 

“Was that another thunder?” Cassie frowned while rubbing her ears.

    

“Probably,” Scott said while doing the same. “I’ve never seen them causing that sound before but… I don’t know what else may cause it.”

  

Cassie nodded at his answer while he and Luis exchanged a look. They stayed silent, but the sound was just another new thing today that was causing Scott to feel suffocated.


	5. Don't Pull Your Fists

With a moan, Hope opened her eyes. A small part of her mind thought this must be how it feels like to be in a car crash as she slowly moved her limbs. There wasn’t anything broken in her body, thankfully. She felt fine other than being shaken a little bit.

Hope knew she would most likely crash somewhere when she exited from the quantum realm, but she didn’t think the impact would feel so intense or so sudden. She and the quantum pod turning back to their normal size happened far quicker than she calculated. She wasn’t sure if she should think it was a mistake of her own, a miscalculation or a failed part, and something she needed to worry about.

She looked around her. The pod was on soil, she realized. When she looked up, she saw gray sky between the trees leaves, the trunks long as mountains from her point of view. There wasn’t any sound she could hear.

Seeing there was no active threat, she checked the console and the empty seat beside her if anything was broken. There was no smoke inside or outside of the vehicle, all the instruments running properly. There was no beeping other than the radar, so the pod was fine. With a sigh of relief, she let her head drop back to the seat, and almost at the same time, she started to giggle.

“I’m… in another universe,” she shook her head, half delirious and half awed. She looked outside of the pod. “This is _ridiculous…_ ”

Biting her lip to stop herself from smiling, Hope held her face between her hands to pull herself together. With a last smile, she reached and tapped on the newly installed tablet to locate exact coordinates of the signal. Ten seconds later the signal was located and Hope didn’t bother to stop herself from heaving a sigh. As she and her mom had predicted, she needed to fly to a long way to the source.

Her dad’s paranoia could be really annoying sometimes.

She quickly rechecked the pod's systems before getting out. After she stepped on the–soft? sunken?–but dry ground. It was weird, considering she was in her shrunken size and she wasn’t on the sand. She filed the little detail on the back of her head before focusing on completing her less complicated quests.

She pointed her right blaster to the pod and pushed the little button on it with her left hand. The already ant-sized vehicle shrank even smaller with the newer remote that she has installed to her blaster. She took the pod from the ground then put it in a tiny bag on her belt for safety. With a last look around her, she took off and followed the signal with the little screen on her left blaster guiding her between the dead-looking trees.

* * *

 

Hope huffed in frustration and kicked a piece of junk in anger.

She thought that the moment she’d find the signal, Scott would be there too. Then they’d jump into the pod and go back home.

She should've guessed it wouldn't be that easy.

She closed her eyes and started to take deep, calming breaths. She leaned on the old wooden table behind her for support as she thought. The scrappy, almost amateur looking radio’s low buzz was the only noise in the old, one-room cabin other than her breathing.

The abandoned cabin was on the side of a muddy lake. The trees in the forest that surrounded it looked dead. No animals or anything alive was anywhere to be seen, and the inside of the cabin was just as lively as outside; trash and junk was scattered all over the place. The only furniture was a stripped bed, an old table, and two chairs.

The old radio with a collection of other used tech and cables were on the bed. It was the signal’s source. Hope was sure it was Scott who built it and, judging by the new looking big batteries, he had been here not long ago.

There wasn’t any note, letter ,or anything that had letters on it other than the empty boxes and packages of pistachio ice cream, mustard, and tacos. When she looked more carefully, Hope saw there were even some dried orange peels on the floor. Definitely Scott.

There wasn’t any other food rubbish other than that and the amount was almost ridiculous. Scott surely spent some time here or left all this trash behind him deliberately for her to see, if she ever came here. For an ordinary person, they were just garbage, but Hope knew they were his favorites. They had many fights over the best ice-cream flavor or if it was legal to eat hot dogs without mustard on top.

Hope didn’t know why he wasn’t here waiting for her or when he was here last time. For what she could see from the dirty windows, there was only one, narrow and rocky road that lead to the little cabin in the woods. It was barely wide enough for a car and there were no new tire traces.

Hope didn’t know if she should wait for his return, but she had no idea when or _if_ he was going to return, or whether it was safe for her to go to him. She didn’t have the answer for any of the questions that were swirling in her head. _Is he safe? Is he far from here? Is he hiding and that’s why he didn’t leave anything that could guide me to him?_

The number of questions in here mind was threatening to drive her crazy with a new wave of fear and desperateness, but Hope was better than giving in to panic. So instead, being the scientist she is, she came up with a plan. She examined the inside of the cabin once more to be sure she hadn’t missed anything, then she shrank, leaving the cabin from the broken window and looked at the dark, from the dirty lake to the tree cemetery around it.

* * *

 

Scott wasn’t at the other end of the road.

Hope knew this was most likely happen, but it didn’t upset her any less. Though, it couldn’t be compared to what she was feeling at what she found.

_San Francisco… but make it cyberpunk._

She couldn’t think of any other phrase to define the scene in front of her. The whole city, the streets she’d spent her childhood and adulthood looked old and dirty, some buildings looked like they’d crumble down any minute. She still could recognize some buildings and streets, enough for her to be able to know where was she, but there were also so many other buildings and roads. They didn’t look new or old exactly, but they were damaged and neglected.

The people were another matter entirely. Everybody was wearing some sort of suit. Most of them were the same with tiny differences. All had the same mask on their faces, but she saw some of them take them off when they get in cars or houses. She flew to a window of an apartment to see the inside. She stepped on the frame and saw a black stripe all along the frame, keeping what’s outside from coming inside.

_Whatever caused all this must be on the air,_ Hope thought, _but I breathed back at the forest and I didn’t feel anything._

Starting to feel a bit anxious, Hope examined the apartment to distract herself. It looked like an ordinary kitchen. A woman was cutting vegetables with a cat walking between her legs. Hope smiled faintly and fled two windows left. This time it looked like a living room, still normal, except the big, metal... _box_ covering the apartment door.

Hope frowned, but she couldn’t get inside to examine it up close. She saw another one of the suits people on the streets were wearing, hanging on the wall beside the box. When she looked at the box again, she saw it had a handle on it. Like door in front of another door.

_What happened here?_

Hope flew away from the window and looked down at the busy street. Street lights were starting to light up, and it made Hope realize the sky was darkening too. She needed to find a place to spend the night, but she wanted to look around a bit more. Thinking it wouldn’t be too hard to find a hole in a wall when she was this small, she decided to go deeper in the city in hopes to find a clue what really happened.

With her small size, her wings were able to carry her to the city’s downtown area in a matter of minutes. Seeing something clearly wrong with this world, Hope thought it would be best to stay out of locals eyes.

Recognizing another street, she dove between the tall and modern buildings. The scene here wasn’t so different from what she already saw. People in masks and suits, walking in straight lines and ignoring the giant flying screen in the middle of the street. _What?_

**AT ORDERS FROM THE RED QUEEN, ALL CITIZENS MUST CONTINUE TO WEAR THEIR PROTECTIVE SUITS WHILE THEY ARE IN UNSTERILE ENVIRONMENTS.**

“I’m a _what_ now?” Hope froze in mid-air at the shock of seeing her face in a giant screen. Big red letters were continuing to sliding below, as Hope saw herself start to speak with a tone so authoritative that she almost couldn’t believe it was indeed her voice.

“ _With the latest developments coming from our Quantum Controlling Team, the air and soil outside of sterilized buildings and vehicles are still carrying dangerous amounts of Quantum energy particles. For your own safety, follow the protocols._ ”

Hope was still stunned and couldn’t turn her eyes away from the screen. A storm of thoughts was making her head ache. “ _Red Queen?_ What the fuck?”

Hope’s panic was rising with every second that passed as she continued to watch herself talk. Her eyes started to catch details of a red-black suit she was wearing when the recording started over, and she saw herself- no, she wasn’t her! Whoever _she_ was, she wasn’t Hope van Dyne!

A drop of water on her head shook Hope out of her trance and almost made her lose her balance. Realizing a downpour had started and the only source of light were street lamps, Hope took a calming breath and forced her thoughts and fears go away. Right now she needed to find a roof over her head. She’d have to wait for a while to freak out about her other self and Scott’s whereabouts. So, she turned and flew away from the screen to a narrow street, hiding in the darkness.

The gap between the buildings turned out to be an alleyway. Even in the dark and up high, Hope still could see a lot of trash was scattered on the ground. Pieces of glass and metal were glittering on the wet asphalt as she flew over them.

" _No, please. No! No, let me go- HELP!_ "

Hope's head snapped at the distressed voice of a woman. She was at the end of the shortcut, two other -much bigger- figures were standing beside her. One of them was holding her arm.

"Hey!" Hope yelled and flew faster. She got higher above them, then dove down while growing back and landing on one of them with a kick to the chest.

Hope and the attacker fall down with a loud chunk. The sound and the pain under her feet confused Hope for a moment. Whatever she just jumped on wasn't flesh and blood, but Hope didn't have time to think about it because the other one had thrown the woman to the ground and was coming for her now.

Hope quickly shrank down and punched the thing on the face before it could get to her. The force of her punch made him fall and made its mask fly over his head, revealing what was behind it.

An iron face with two menacing red eyes looked at her. A face she knew very well from a couple of years back. _Ultron_.

_Sure, why not?_ Hope instinctively raised her arms to blast a hole in its chest, but something held her arm back and hurled her forcely to the wall behind her. A second later, an iron fist made contact with her chest, making her gasp in pain.

Then something slammed into the robots head, distracting it momentarily and allowing Hope to raise her hand to the robot’s chin and blow through its head, causing a tiny explosion that would've roast her face if it wasn't for her helmet.

The robot that held her captive fell back and she quickly shot the other one before it could make a move. She leaned back to the wall and put her hand on her aching muscles. If the punch landed inch higher, it would’ve broken her collarbone.

"Thank you, whoever you are," the woman said, tentatively approaching the still breathless Hope. She didn't wear a mask on, Hope noticed. _Maybe the robots attacked her because of it._

Hope nodded and said a muffled yeah under the helmet. Without thinking it through, she opened it up to talk easier. "I should thank you too if it wasn't for your rock-"

But the woman wasn't listening to Hope. Instead, she was backing up hastily while holding her hand like she wanted to protect herself. "Oh, no. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry! My mask got damaged I-"

Continuing to stutter, she took her bag and mask from the ground quickly ran off. Leaving Hope standing in front of the wall while still clenching her right.

" _What have I done in this world?!_ " Hope asked herself in pain, looking after the woman.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with this chapter Red Queen has joined to my mess. I plan to make her a general Marvel villain since most what I found about her was just about that, but I'm open to suggestions.


	6. Heist

Scott Lang probably had never been more focused in his life.

After months of planning, the moment had come. Unlike his previous attempts, this time he had no luxury to screw it up or retreat. He and the rest of his team had to pull off tonight in order to wake up to the better tomorrow they all hope and fight for. Scott wanted that for them, and he wanted for himself that his better tomorrow would be in his home world.

To achieve that goal, he and his team, -that mostly made up by his friends from work or normal people who wanted to take action- had to break into a literal supervillain's, evil lair and steal some shit from the said lair.

Or in other words; break into the Red Queen’s Secret Lab, a.k.a. Pym Tech building, and steal some Pym Particles. Which, was currently being protected by Ultron bots, dog-sized bullet ants, and cameras watching almost every corner and corridor of the building.

No need to add that Scott was guessing no matter the universe, Pym particle was something you shouldn’t mess with -unless you want to end up trapped in other dimensions like him and Janet or shrink to death like Darren Cross.

The point was they had to be very careful while carrying those precious and dangerous vials through an hour walk in the sewers. The risks were high, but they had to steal enough particles and bring them undamaged to replicate them if they can and if not, use them wisely with the ‘shrinking suits’ they were making.

They weren’t as advanced or _lets face it_ , as durable and safe as Hank’s suits, but Scott knew enough about his tech to replicate something that would do the _job_. The _job_ happened to be rebellion against the Red Queen.

The idea of a rebellion was something that people whispered since the Red Queen took the reigns after the incident, or that’s what Luis and Maggie told Scott. He had found himself in this world shortly before her rise in power, therefore he was able to take the ‘other’ and ‘dead’ Scott’s place before the body counting had begun.

When the Red Queen pressured the people with her orders, rules, and then Ultron bots, the idea of rebellion became more than a whisper and Scott became one of the ‘brains’ shortly after they started organizing.

The Pym Heist was his idea and it was planned by him and said ‘brains’. People who were risking their lives tonight were counting on their plan to succeed. Scott knew that, and that was the reason why he not only planned the heist, but he also took probably the most important -and the most dangerous- mission of the heist: Breaking into the secret vault inside the Red Queen’s secret laboratory that kept the red and blue vials inside.

Scott couldn’t and wouldn’t trust anybody else for that task. Not when it took so long just to plan the thing. He also gave the second most important job to people he trusted their loyalty and talents. So, he waited in the air duct for Luis, Linda, and Maggie to announce they were in position, the ants on their ways were neutralizing by Maggie as they spoke and Scott was good to go.

Scott swiftly jumped down from the air duct that hung on the ceiling. He hit the ground as silent as he could and froze for a moment. He looked around then slowly walked into the depths of the dimly lit room. His ears were listening to his surroundings for the clipping of a jaw or the metallic sound of a footstep.

He thought how every part of his team should be checking in through their comms, but it was Luis and Linda’s job to answer them. Scott wasn’t hearing them because his only open line was with Luis and Linda. He had done it on purpose. He didn’t need any distractions right now.

Scott was as careful and silent as he could as he walked between the tables and cabinets that filled with vials, files and different kinds of equipment that Scott didn’t know the names of. In a matter of minutes, he arrived at the cabinet 5-B without any accidents.

Scott stopped and looked inside the glass; empty bottles and files contained one shelf, and the rest of them were filled with books. Scott didn’t hold himself from rolling his eyes at the whole cliche look over it, but he went back to business and pushed in the right lid’s handle.

Almost cartoonishly, the cabinet moved forward and Scott took two steps back to allow it slide to the side and open the entrance to the Red Queen’s secret lab. Scott nodded appreciating,there was a real effort put into it.

He slowly walked into the brightly lit room. In the back of his mind, he thought how much Cassie will love when he told about how he broke into a vault behind a secret cabinet like he was in an adventure movie.

_If she still likes to watch that kind of movies._ He added sadly.

He looked around the room as he walked further. It was rather large. He knew Red Queen used the lab outside as her personal workplace, but this secret room was particular. While she allowed some people in the room outside with her, this place was for her only. It held her most secret and valuable tech and their plans.

Which a lot of them were hanging on the walls. Scott examined some of them and wished he had a camera or a phone with him to take pictures. He had no time to draw them down either, so he reluctantly let go and walked between the two big tables that some prototypes were scattered on. Scott even saw a suit at the end of the room. It had familiar colours with his suit but other than that it was shaped very different. Not the mention it was obviously a work in progress.

Given the time Scott would spend hours in there but he had a job to do. So he pointedly looked forward and made his way to the vault at the end of the room. It was buried in the wall and on the big lids left side there was a little screen and under it there was buttons with numbers on them.

Already having a fingerprint with the help of an assistant that worked here, Scott passed that step without any trouble. He also had most of the password too -thanks to Ant-i Red Queen. Scott only had to figure out the last number. Which even that one number would’ve been a real problem with only three chances to enter the password right, but the Red Queen was also a Drama Queen.

The last digit was seven. And Scott was sure of it because it was obviously part of a particular date; _24.10.1987. The death of Janet van Dyne and Hank Pym._

Scott would love to say the word death between quotation marks, walk up to her and say, “Nah, dude. There’s still a chance that they are down there wandering around.” But no, he had seen their tomb and watched an old record of the funeral. They looked very dead in their coffins.

After seeing that footage for the first time, Scott couldn’t help but felt a bit sorry for her. No matter what she was now, that day she was just a seven year old girl whose parents had died.

Though his sympathy was short-lived after he remembered another seven-year-old girl who lost her mother and left alone by her father for the most of her life, but didn’t turn out as a supervillain with an obsession of world domination.

Instead, she had become one of the best people Scott had ever seen in his life, and was one of the things helping him to keep his reason in a place that.

He dialed the numbers and safe opened with click. He touched his earpiece. “Safe is open. Give me five minutes and I’ll be on the corridor.”

“ _Got it Scotty,_ ” Luis answered.

Scoot opened the almost gigantic safe door and looked at the wardrobe-like safe. He was speechless at the sight of maybe hundreds of red, blue and yellow vials in front of him. Scott grinned and went on his knees and started to take bottles of red and blue particles from the bottom racks so the Red Queen wouldn’t notice immediately that someone broke into her vault.

Scott carefully put the particles in a suitcase he specially prepared for their safe transport. When there was no place left, he started to refill his suit’s particles. Both for shrinking and growing.

With enough vials for his and other suits to be operational, he was done here. He carefully locked the vial case, and slowly got up with it in his hand. He closed the safe, it automatically locked itself again.

Scott quickly exited the secret room and hid it again after he got out. He touched the little button on his earpiece. “I’m out of the secret lab. Entering the corridor in a minute.”

“ _Ok. Your path in this floor is clear. Be quick, and you can go to stairs with no problem,_ ” Luis said.

“ _Your path in this floor is clear_  -who are you? Gandalf?” Scott joked.

“ _Who’s Gandalf?_ ”

Scott sighed. “Never mind.” He cracked the door open and looked around before exiting the room. He quickly made his way through the corridor and went to the fire exit without being seen. He slowly opened the door and closed behind him with the same care. There was no source of light in there, so he opened his flashlight. Then he started to go down the stairs as quickly and as fast as possible.

Scott made almost no sound as he almost flew down the stairs. Though, his ear was open for Luis may say something important. Just like his ears, his fists were also ready for if something might come.

When Scott had only about three floors left to the hatch’s floor, Luis talked. “ _Scott, you copy?_ ”

Scott’s heart clenched in his chest. “Yeah man, only three floors left,” he answered out of breath. He saw he was already half-way through as he turned another corner. “You know what, make it two and a half...”

“ _Scott, we have a problem. I think we have two men down,_ ” Luis said.

“ _What?!_ ” Scott almost exclaimed but held himself at the last moment. “Who? Where?”

“ _In the electrics department, it just happened. Bill warned us about something like a robot. Then some static and they’re silent ever since_.”

Bill, was a huge guy. Scott saw him take out a bot just by crashing its head to the wall once. They were all in danger.

“I’m on it,” Scott said, putting the particle case gently to the ground with his backpack. He then snapped his helmet on and exited two floor before his original destination. With his operational Ant-Man suit on, he could blow up those freaky robots in minutes without the other two men can even see him.

“ _Nononono, you can’t -you have the particles you can’t stop right now. I just contacted you to ask who to send!_ ”

“The particles are safe, don’t worry. I can handle it Luis, you know I can. Just- be my eyes-on-the-sky alright?” Scott looked to a door nearby and read the number on it aloud. Luis started to guide him through dark corridors.

“ _Fine, but don’t do anything foolish until the back-up arrives_.”

“Don’t worry ‘bout it,” Scott said. For a second, he thought about calling ants for help, but he quickly remembered his communication device was taken out from his helmet and was currently on the use by Maggie. The idea of her sending them to help him was quickly dismissed. She must be trying very hard to keep focused on them to stay away from the people already, since not a word came from her since announcing her position. He didn’t want to give her more than she could carry.

Scott already knew the layout of the floor since he spent nights memorizing the plans of the building. He walked through three empty corridors. All of them were dim lighted but was enough to read the plates on the doors.

Taking the last turn, he entered a dark corridor with red emergency lights on. He stopped after taking a few reluctant steps forward. He could hear the sounds of a fight and probably Buck’s yellings, but none of them was on sight. He put his finger on the button on his glove, but before he could push it a man flew out of the last room on the corridor. He hit the wall with a bang and moaned on the floor. The double doors slapped back on their after him.

“I found the room. I’m going in,” Scott whispered. He started to run and pushed the button. He waited for world to grown as he shrank, but he was confused when it didn’t. He slowed down before he reached to the doors but before he could run or hide, someone emerged from the room that his teammate just flew from.

A lean figure slowly walked to the unconscious man on the floor. Suddenly the white lights all across the corridor blinkered for a short moment and the figure’s transparent wings and yellow lenses on their shiny helmet shined.

Scott froze in his step his feet skriled on the tiles. The sound made the figure turn its head and saw him when lights blinkered again.

Scott knew she recognized him too, because the next moment the familiar click of her helmet brought Scott back into reality and he saw her face. Then his helmet was opening too and they were running to each other.

The moment their bodies meet, their arms held onto each other for dear life. Scott’s body started to tremble with sudden hiccups as he held Hope tighter and tighter, trying to convince himself that she was finally here, in his arms, that she had came for him. She was holding on to him in the same way.

With every passing second, the felt he weight on his shoulders was lifting. The relief that was washing over him felt like he was flying. He could tell Hope was feeling the same way by the kisses on his cheek and neck. Her happy tears and waves of laughter were mixing up with sobs. She pulled back for a moment, only to hold his face with both hands and kiss him senselessly.

“You’re... still alive,” she breathed between kisses. “I found you...” Scott held her tighter when she stopped kissing him, though her hands didn’t leave his cheeks. “I’m sorry we couldn’t get you sooner. Just fixing and modifying the pod took us a week before I could take out.”

_A week? Only a-_

“ _Scotty you’re ok?_ ” Luis’ voice echoed in his ears, bringing him back to the reality where he was in middle of a heist. “ _Are you ok? I can’t see you because there are no cameras in that corridor, but Jack and Ed are on the floor now. They should be with you in a minute._ ”

“Uh… ok!” Scott said while holding a finger on his mouth. She frowned at him and he while he wanted to tell her everything, they didn’t have the time right now. He whispered to her ear instead, “I’m so, _so_ happy to see you. But now you need to shrink -Right now! Stay close to me but don’t let them see you. We need to leave this place first for me to explain.”

“What? What’s going on?” Hope whispered back but she did as she’s told when she heard footsteps approaching. Scott didn’t snap his helmet back on so he could listen to the buzz of Hope’s wings. She was flying close.

“A heist is going on,” Scott said as he walked to his still passed out friend. “I can explain once we get home, but now please don’t let them see you.”

Two men, suited up with standard masks and suits but also with weapons in their hands and a backpack on one of them ran to them. Scott recognized Ed from the backpack and height. He was supposed to guard the hatch to the sewer and seeing him here made Scott want to leave this place immediately.

He forced himself to get it together and signed them to slow down. “You’re too loud!” he hissed. “Come on we have to hurry, we probably have to carry them both outta here.”

Two men nodded and followed him to their unconscious friend on the ground. “What happened to him?” Jack asked.

“I found him like this,” Scott said. _Technically it’s not a lie_ , he thought.

“Do you think it was a bot? Are we exposed?” asked Ed.

“Don’t think so. If they did, we would know by now, trust me,” Scott answered.

Ed nodded while slapping the man’s cheeks. When he got no response he sighed and hanged his rifle on his shoulder. He nodded toward the room behind them, the doors were wide open after Hope came out. “You two go get Bill. I can carry him on my own,” he said, picking up the man and holding him firefighter style.

Scott and Jack nodded and went inside. They found Bill in a similar state on the ground. Jack went beside to Bill as Scott checked out the controls and made sure nothing was switched to wrong way while Hope beat them up. When he saw everything was fine, he went beside Jack and Bill.

He grimaced as he looked at his friend. Bill’s forehead was bloody, definitely needed to be stitched up. Scott saw a bloody pipe laying on the ground not far away from him. Hope certainly didn’t hold back.

Speaking of Hope, Scott looked around for her while trying not to be obvious with Jack beside him. As he started to worry when he couldn’t see or hear her, he felt something on the back of his neck.

“Okay, you got the legs, I got the shoulders. On three,” Jack said and Scott sprint to action. They picked the almost 400-pound man up with great effort, then they started to half carry half drag him through the corridors. After they turned three corners Ed came back running to help them.

Scott left them be and ran back to the staircase to get his backpack and case. He found them exactly how he left. “Ok. I got the particles, time to leave this place. Everyone ready?”

“ _Positive,_ ” Luis answered. “ _Ed and Jack just brought Bill to the hatch. Me, Maggie and Linda will join you as soon as Linda finishes replacing the real footage with a fake one_.”

“ _It’s almost done. We’ll be there in five minutes_ ,” Linda said, and Scott let out a breath in relief. With his backpack on, he started to climb down the rest of the stairs. Hope flew in front of his face and gestured _what’s going on?!_ with her tiny arms. Scott only smiled and made a thumbs up to her.

He’d never expect Hope would to turn out tonight _and_ in this place. When he thought all the possibilities he could think of as he planned the heist he certainly didn’t expect _that_.

The whole heist was about getting his hands on some Pym particles so he could go back to the quantum realm and hope for the tiny possibility of being found by Hope and her parents, like they found Janet. But at the end of the night Hope herself found him. It was better than anything he stole here tonight. He would sing and dance in happiness if he weren’t in a building with literal killing machines walking around.

That moment had to wait just a little longer and he could wait a little bit longer.


End file.
